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AG yet to complete ‘heavy’ investigation into GECOM
Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, has said that his office is yet to complete the special investigation
Auditor General, Deodat Sharma
into the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
State auditors have been working, perusing contracts and inventories, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, including spending for the May 2015 general and regional elections.
Sharma said that auditors are working hard to complete the “heavy” investigation. He noted that his auditors have to look into the purchase of high frequency radios, toners for printers and photocopiers and pliers and nippers and batteries.
The Auditor General said that the auditors have already completed some aspects of the investigations. Sharma declined to give a timeline as to how soon this investigation can be completed. “What takes times is that we have to interview all the officers and go through the procedures and everything. We do this so that when we present a case it is perfect.
The audit has been on for more than five months now.
Auditors have been working from GECOM’s headquarters in High Street, Kingston. They have visited the stores at Coldingen, East Coast Demerara, among other GECOM’s facilities. The probe reportedly extended to the spending of the 2016 local government elections.
The auditors have reportedly found several cases of worrying breaches of procurement procedures, excesses and wanton spending. In some cases items were purchased for four or five times the retail prices.
Kaieteur News understands that a number of sweeping adjustments will have to be made.
GECOM last year was under severe pressure with the scandal leaving a dark cloud on the legacy of outgoing Chairman, Dr. Steve Surujbally.
The Chairman, who had signaled his intentions to step down on November 30, has been asked by the administration to stay on to oversee the transition to a new person. The process to choose a new Chairperson is ongoing and has developed into a battle between the administration and the Opposition over the interpretation of the Constitution of the land.
With regards to GECOM’s spending, from internal documents and that filed with the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB), GECOM reportedly deliberately bypassed established procedures of the state when it comes to using tax dollars to procure services and items.
The purchase of high frequency radios, toners for printers and photocopiers and pliers and nippers all had one thing in common in 2015—hundreds of millions of dollars were paid for them by GECOM under very questionable circumstances. There are other transactions that also came under investigations, including the purchase of Duracell batteries.
According to official figures of contracts awarded in 2015, there were two payments for Duracell batteries by GECOM. One contract was awarded on April 23, 2015, about three weeks before the elections for $14,529,000. This contract was awarded to Mobile Authority, a business owned by Water Street businessman, Michael Brasse.
There was another contract awarded to the same entity for $9,180,518 on May 21, 2015, making it a total of $23,709,518 paid for Duracell batteries last year.
With regards to the contract date of May 21, the big question according to GECOM officials was, ‘Why would the entity want to enter into a contract after the elections for the batteries?’
GECOM was left with several boxes of the Duracell batteries delivered by Brasse.
Investigations by Kaieteur News revealed that GECOM and taxpayers paid millions of dollars more for those batteries than what they could have been acquired for.
The Duracell batteries contracts would join a number of other questionable multi-million-dollar payments to Brasse and his brother, Mahendra Brasse, owner of Standard Distributors, a King Street, Lacytown business.
Three weeks prior to the May 11, 2015 General and Regional Elections, the entity doled out $14.8M for the purchase of nippers/pliers from a King Street, Lacytown business called Standard Distributors. It appeared that GECOM paid out an average of $6,000 apiece for those pliers when they could have been acquired on the local market for $600. It was not even a popular brand name.
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